The weather forecast warned of freezing temperatures for last Saturday, which meant the daffodils and camellias would all be ruined overnight. It wasn't worth cutting the camellias since they last only a day in a vase, and since the bushes are still covered with buds that will bloom after the freeze. But the daffodils. I couldn't bear losing all the longlasting daffodils in one overnight freeze.
It didn't look like a big job. How long could it take to cut a few daffodils spread around the yard? So I took a couple of pitchers half-filled with water outside and began cutting. Filled the next two, and the next. Went back for more and filled those, too. Before it was over, I had thirteen pitchers and jars filled with fresh cut daffodils.
Delivered the six fullest jars to my six nearest neighbors before I thought of taking a photo.
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| Leftovers after the first six deliveries |
Gave three more jars to my yayas and still had four left for my own house.
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| Love the white petaled ones best |
And sure enough, it did freeze that night.
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| Frozen sugar water in hummingbird feeder |
Now, almost a week later, the daffodils are still bright and beautiful indoors. The nine recipients expressed gracious appreciation for the deliveries, and their pleasure multiplied mine by nine. Still, I wonder how the freeze will affect the remaining spring blooms, especially the cherries and hydrangeas. dkm
13 comments:
Deb, your garden must be spectacular when the daffs are out - especially in the forest setting that you enjoy. Oh to have so many to share with neighbours!
I like the white petalled ones too.
How heavy do your frosts get??
This one only went to 19 degrees Fahrenheit, or -7 C. Our coldest is usually in the low teens, not often more than a single night at a time. Occasionally it goes lower---but generally only in the month of January. We have relatively mild winters in Georgia---halfway between the frigid northern states and the tropical Florida.
Drought and neglect have taken their tolls on my garden :-( but the daffodils and hardy perennials persist. No veggies, only flowers. My brother thinks it can't be called a garden if it has no vegetables in it. But then, he's not a southerner.
Hmmm - that's a good frost. ChCh can get spectacular frosts. Governors Bay gets them too but eased by proximity to the sea.
Niki's blog about the SUN is topical here. We've had an unusually cool, cloudy summer. Fuel for the global warming deniers...
Funny---I didn't think of that as a blog about the sun :-)---had to read it again---to verify.
The deniers have their heads in the sand.
The white petals are beautiful. I didn't realise there were so many varieties until the first year we were here. Lots of different daffs popped up.
what a lovely post!! I brought in one fat, but compared to your haul, measly, bouquet.
I think if the buds are tight the blooms will be ok.
We'll see.
Have you been counting birds today? Funny, our robins, thrashers and wrens are MIA today.
Ellen, you were right about the tight buds---some of the ones I left have already opened since the freeze---still have a few that are just now putting up buds, so all were not lost.
Was this a birdcount day? I should have participated. Birds are going crazy at the feeder these days, emptying it in about three days---mostly finches, but a nice variety---haven't seen robins back yet--lots of wrens, though.
Cool Daffs but also neat bird feeder .. almost an old fashoned light fitting/lamp.
Sorry .. got interrupted with work .. is the feeder able to be lit ? And good on you for sharing your collection. :)
Interesting- our daffodils haven't come even close to blooming yet. I guess they are much later here. Good thing!
PG--it only looks like a lamp--doesn't light--though when the sun shines on the red globe it attracts our ruby-throated hummingbirds by the droves--during migration only---not now. This batch of sugarwater is long overdue to be emptied--not to my credit, it's leftover from last fall:-(
Mike---sadly, our earliest spring blooms are as much as four weeks early this year--presumably due to global warming---including early return of birds headed north, where I fear they will die in a hard freeze!
Aha, I figured that red had to be part of the feeder and not the water (and I see the frozen line of water now).
So many folks unnecessarily use red dye in their sugar water...sometimes I'm tempted to write corrective post-it notes and leave them on the feeders I pass on my walks!
ha ha--just saw this comment---wouldn't someone be surprised to find a sticky note on his/her feeder---a mysterious message from a hummingbird :-). You could sign it Anna, or Ruby. And yes, no need for food color--I think it's even dangerous to the birds, not? I fell in love with this feeder when I saw its red glass globe---for years I refused to put out hummer feeders because the only ones available were those ugly red and yellow plastic affairs.
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